The seeds for the quartet that became the Boars—Lars Nylander on Farfisa, Brent Willson on bass, Jeff Glave on guitar and drummer Eric Eidel—were sewn in the early 2000s.
“I was traveling with Brent in Spain a few years back,” Nylander said. “We stayed in an out-of-the-way cottage on The Campo in Asturias. The place featured a gnarly and bedraggled-looking taxidermy boar’s head on the wall. We took pics of it and later that night we were going over the pics. Both of us came to the conclusion at the same time that it would be an amazing band name and that that boar would be our image. That night, the Boars were born.”
Back in San Francisco, they recruited Glave and Eidel and began focusing on the ’60s hits they all loved. Hints of Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Yardbirds, the Zombies and even the Monkees appear in their arrangements, though they’ve been distilled down into the Boars’ unique style.
Their recently released EP, The Boars Outro EP, features two originals and a cover of “Little Boy Blue,” a hit from the ’60s garage band Tonto & the Renegades.
Although the Boars have played together for more than a decade, they’ve only put out three recordings: their debut The Boars in 2017; Outta Our Nest (Outtakes, Singles & Dirty Filthy Demos) in 2023; and their new Outro EP, their first for the vinyl-only Outro label based in Los Angeles.
“The songs don’t write themselves,” Nylander said. “We’ve been together a lot longer than we’ve been making records. We all have day jobs. Three of us have kids and three of us are in other bands as well.”
Outro was recorded at El Studio, with studio owner Donny Newenhouse (bass player in Terry Gross) and his crew assisting.
“(El Studio) is amazing,” Nylander said. “It’s chock full of great vintage recording equipment and instruments. Donny and his crew are extremely knowledgeable in all facets of recording. They provided a very cool studio experience. We did everything on analog reel-to-reel tape. We produced it ourselves. We all had a hand in getting the sound we like. We all see pretty much eye to eye on what we want to hear.”
After laying down the basic tracks live in the studio, they overdubbed the vocals and percussion. “Worth Yer While” and “Piccolo Pete” are the newest songs.
“Brent and myself are the main songwriters, but everyone throws in their input and comes up with their own individual parts after we have the basic foundation laid out,” Nylander said. “We just try and keep it simple. If a song sticks, then that’s what we go with. We also did ‘L’il Boy Blue’—our take on ‘Little Boy Blue’—a cover of a song put out by Tonto & the Renegades, a group in Grand Ledge, Michigan, in 1967.”
The three tunes on the record are all short and punchy. “Piccolo Pete” is propelled by a driving rhythm from Nylander’s Farfisa and the band’s rhythm section. It has an unforgettable chorus, featuring the group’s harmony vocals, and tells the story of a guy taking advantage of the generosity of his friends. Glave’s crisp guitar chords and Eidel’s propulsive drumming drive “Worth Yer While,” which contains lyrical and musical quotes from several ’60s hits.
“It’s about how to, and how not to, approach a person you’ve interested in asking out, but trying not to be creepy about it,” Nylander said. “It’s a fine line.”
What does the future hold for the Boars?
“We play what we would consider a fair amount, an average of one or two gigs a month,” Nylander said. But he feels the band isn’t playing out of state, or out of the country, enough. He says they’re going to remedy that with a Japanese tour next November and European tours sometime next year.
“Being a ’60s-style garage band is not unique, but we think we have a somewhat distinct sound we can call our own,” he said. “It’s 99% stealing from all the great garage bands from the ’60s, and 1% beer and jokes.”
More info: theboars.bandcamp.com/album. Instagram: @the.boars.sf
